Euro 2016 Fantasy League: Guru's tips and guidelines - the captain conundrum
One major difference between the popular Fantasy Premier League and the Euro fantasy league is the manner in which you choose your captain.
For FPL, once you pick your captain you can’t change him during the game week but if he doesn’t play then your vice-captain (if he plays) will get the captain’s bonus. However, in Euro fantasy league, you can take advantage of the option to switch captains manually during the matchday to maximize your points.
According to the official rules: You can change your captain (if he was not sent off) with a player from your squad whose team is yet to play.
The best way to utilise this is by picking your captain from one of the players in your squad who plays on the first day of the upcoming matchday (if not the second day and so on). If he doesn’t score enough points then you can change your captain before the next day’s matches start and repeat the process till the last set of fixtures on that particular matchday or stop when one of the captains you picked has scored enough points and you are satisfied.
For example, I picked Payet as my captain for the first matchday because France were the first team to play. Luckily, he scored and assisted a goal each and hence I decided not change my captain. If Payet did not score that many points, I would have changed my captain to another player (who is yet to play) before the next day’s matches start and repeat the process.
Whom to pick for matchday 2?
Goalkeeper:
In the first guide, I suggested that it would be a good idea to pick one of Neuer or Lloris as your first choice keeper and I still stick to it. France are playing Albania and there is a good chance that they will keep a cleansheet.It would also be a good option to make Lloris your captain if you are confident that France will keep a cleansheet.
Defence:
If you’ve followed matchday 1 then you would have noticed that all the games so far are low scoring affairs and I expect the trend to continue in this round of fixtures as well. One calculated gamble you can make is choosing a defender as your captain. French defenders would be a good choice as they play Albania or you can go for players from teams like England, Germany, Italy or Portugal. The probability of your team maintaining a cleansheet is likely to be more than a player scoring a goal.
One player I would recommend to all users is Raphael Guerreiro of Portugal. He costs only €4m, he is their first choice full back and he takes set pieces.
Midfield:
I have the same advice for midfielders – pick attacking midfielders or wingers or central midfielders who take set pieces. Based on matchday 1 the players I would suggest are Payet, Ozil, Kroos, Brozovic, Perisic and Konoplyanka.
Forwards:
If you have Lewandowski in your team, then you need to be worried. The Pole was the top-scorer in the qualifying phase but failed to find the back of the net in the first game. Poland’s next game is against Germany and the odds of him scoring may not be very high.
On the other hand, this could be a good time to pick Olivier Giroud. The Arsenal man scored in the opening game and had plenty of other chances to score against a resilient Romanian defence. Since France are playing against newcomers Albania and also because Giroud is the first choice striker, making him captain for this game could work in your favour.
Other than Giroud, some other forwards I recommend are Dzyuba of Russia, Mandzukic of Croatia and Morata of Spain.